


verbals

by dansunedisco



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Conversations, F/M, Gen, aka the game of verbal smackdowns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-28
Updated: 2016-07-28
Packaged: 2018-07-27 09:31:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7612867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dansunedisco/pseuds/dansunedisco
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tyrion and Jon talk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	verbals

**Author's Note:**

> delusionandfaith asked for: 'Tyrion comes North to treat with the Starks. Jon cannot figure out why he's so unnerved by the man, until Tyrion sheds light on certain things.'
> 
> SO yeah this isn't 100% that, but it basically totally is *jazz hands*

“We’ve gone back to the beginning, you and I,” Tyrion says, grip loose on the wineskin he holds in his hand. He swings it back and forth, back and forth, a lazy, drunk smile on his face. “I would call it quaint… but, perhaps, _strange_ is a better word for it.”

Jon takes a shaky breath, the memory of a night, many years gone now, when he was merely Jon Snow: Lord Eddard Stark’s bastard. Not the King in the North. Not a Targaryen. He received advice from the imp then. Advice that prodded sharply at the bruise he’s carried his entire life, from the moment he drew breath. He did not begrudge Tyrion his words--he heard worse, and from better people--but he remembers thinking: _What would a Lannister know?_ A dwarf Tyrion might be, a bastard in his father’s eyes, but to the rest of Westeros he was as good as his gold, his name.

Jon Snow, however, would always be Jon Snow. Even now, as he stands king.

“A great deal has happened to us both since,” Tyrion continues, possibly to fill the silence Jon is perfectly happy with keeping. That is one thing Jon has noticed, since his aunt and her Hand arrived: the man talks. Constantly. Usually with a cup of sour wine or sweet ale at the ready. “There was a time, when I was in a tiny, little box on a ship floating towards Pentos, that I thought of you quite often.”

Jon takes a drink from his own cup. It would only be polite to follow on with a response, to ask ‘how so?’, but he can’t bring himself to do it. Perhaps any other lord would take offense to his rudeness, but Tyrion’s expression, if anything, relaxes even further.

“There’s wasn’t much for me to do then but think,” he says. “I was alone, you see. I had just been accused, by my dearest sister, mind you, of murder. Not just any murder, of course: but murder of the king. Her son. My _nephew_. And then I’d put a bolt in my father’s stomach. Or was that before, or after?” He thumbs his chin; the jagged, white scar bisecting it. “Doesn’t matter the order, I suppose.” He sighs. “Varys secreted me away. Boxed me up like an old relic with only my thoughts to keep me company. And in the darkness, I would say to myself: _Going to Winterfell was the start of all this shit_.” He jabs his finger into the air. “If Robert, the great, drunken fool, had chosen someone else but your lord father as Hand… if we’d all stayed away from the North… I wouldn’t be in this damn box! The beginning of the unraveling: Winterfell. _The North._ It was the best joke I’d ever thought up.”

“Am I to laugh?” Jon asks sharply.

“If it would please you. I’m certainly not going to.” He chuckles. “Maybe a bit.”

Jon pushes up from his chair, wanting to both clobber Tyrion for all that he’s said and flee from his presence altogether. Instead, he speaks: “My father was the most honorable man I’d ever known. And he died for it; was marked a traitor by it. But _you_ killed Jon Arryn. You dropped the sword on Lord Stark’s neck. And then, you come here and blame us for all your woes. For putting you in a box. Winterfell wasn’t the beginning of the end for you. Your family had already played their game and lost, long before you ever looked North.” He pauses. “Though it seems you’ve found yourself very well in your travels since. Good night, Lord Hand.”

He’s seen the man in action with the Northern lords-- he possessed a clever tongue, and a sharper mind-- but Tyrion only lifts the wineskin up in a perfunctory salute. “Your Grace.”

It’s not until Jon’s stormed through from the hall to his chambers that he realizes what that was-- exactly as it was all those years ago: a bastard sizing another bastard up before battle. Though theirs is political, it will be no less dangerous-- and a landscape that is foreign to him still. It’s the thought that he may have misstepped that carries him past his door, feet carrying him to the one person who would know for certain.

Sansa answers her door immediately, almost as if she was waiting for him, and ushers him inside with a blunt, “Tell me.”

He recounts the evening: Tyrion’s request for drink, their idle conversation-- how it veered off towards subjects more sensitive than sound, and his parting remarks. She makes him tell her two more times, “Verbatim, Jon. Exactly as you said them.”

“You think you’ve offended him,” she says afterwards. A smile pulls at her mouth. “A mortal wound with a verbal barb.”

He thinks of Rickon; his mistakes born from emotion. From what he’s seen and heard, his aunt is a reasonable woman and a merciful queen, but he feels like he’s walking along the Wall once more; not a single barrier between him and the ether. One false step to plummet. “It was unwise. To let him goad me.”

She places her hand over his. She brushes her thumb along his knuckles. Her skin is warm, smooth; the touch comforting. “You didn’t lop his head off. You didn’t say anything he didn’t deserve. He’s not faultless. And that, I’m sure, he knows all too well.”

Jon turns his hand over, slowly, bringing them palm to palm. He remembers their reunion: her auburn hair was so bright against the bleak tones of Castle Black. She looked as out of place as he felt, but they held one another like the last two wolves alive. He wants badly to verbalize how badly he needs her, but--words with women have never been his strong suit. Sansa, he’s sure, already knows how he feels. He lets the silence persist, and vows to tell her soon.


End file.
